I Listen to New Records While I Drive, Sometimes It's Disappointing.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in my car on weekends, mostly sitting in traffic on the B.Q.E. while people stop and gawk at the Waterfalls.* It's frustrating at times, but it's also when I get to pay close attention to new records. It's the most suburban thing about me, I think, that I never quite feel like I've really heard a record until I've spent time with it in my car. Anyway, this past weekend, I took two new records with me: Catfish Haven's Devastator and Calexico's Carried to Dust. On first listen, I wasn't particularly fond of either. 

Catfish Haven is still doing the rowdy, 60s soul thing I loved so much on their last record, Tell Me, but there's something really terrible about the production on the new one. Too much separation, I think, to the point where every song winds up sounding like it could be the generic "soul" ringtone on a cell phone.  

I spent less time with the Calexico record despite being even more excited for it, and there was something keeping me from really diving in. It seemed a bit cold, which is surprising considering how welcoming I've found everything else they've done. I worry that it has something to do with my inability to process what I believe might be a more pronounced focus on the Spanish and Mexican sounds they've always implemented so carefully. After a few more careful listens, I'll decide how I feel about it, but right now, the whole thing seems like pastiche. 

Both records do, actually, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around when exactly I find it offensive and when I don't. It may ultimately devolve into a conversation about authenticity, though, and that's not really fun for anyone, now is it?

*Speaking of the Waterfalls, did anyone happen to notice a few weeks ago that the one out there by the Statue of Liberty just kinda stopped working? I drove by it on two separate occasions, a few days apart, and mysteriously, it just wan't on. Presumably, no one cared.

Irish Folk Singer Ronnie Drew, 1934 - 2008

Ronnie Drew, lead-singer of the Dubliners, who were the single most energetic Irish folk band I've ever heard, died on Saturday of throat cancer. The Times ran a nice obituary yesterday, my favorite part of which is:

"Liam Collins, writing in The Belfast Telegraph on Tuesday, recalled a story told my Mr. Drew's son, Phelim, about the morning the singer stopped into an empty pub for a cocktail. The bar's only other patron looked at Mr. Drew and remarked, 'I thought you were off the drink."

'I am,' Mr. Drew replied, but I have a gin and tonic every now and again. I find it helps me to mind my own business. Would you like one?"

I can't stop watching this video of the Pogues and the Dubliners playing "The Irish Rover." Watch how Drew and MacGowan just stand there during the instrumental passages. It's wonderful. 

I Talk About the Hold Steady All Day, Every Day

My friend Sarah just started a blog on which she'll attempt to suss out her feelings on the Hold Steady, a band she'd hated forever, but has recently come to like. Sort of. 

She brings up an interesting point in her second post, about how all the women in the songs on their new record, Stay Positive, are sorta fucked,  or as she puts it, "broken." This is something I thought critics were going to bring up a lot more with this record, because I do think there's something to it. I said this in my review, though, and I do stand by it, I think -- the girls are all messed up, for sure, and I was troubled by it at first, but I'm not sure how mad I can get, because, really, everyone is messed up. And for the most part, I think the boys come out looking even worse than the women, even if only by virtue of the fact that they continue to chase them. Like the woman in "Magazines," for instance--I think she comes off looking great. She parties a lot, gets drunk, seems like she might have some money, has dudes lining up to date her... I don't know. She seems kinda powerful--she's fucked, of course, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a Hold Steady character who's not fucked in some way. 

I was telling Sarah she should give Separation Sunday a chance too, because I think one of the most appealing things about the Hold Steady are the recurring characters (Holly, Gideon, Charlemagne, etc.) and the constant references to other songs, both their own and other bands', and that record is overflowing with all of that stuff. It's like a test--a way to congratulate yourself for being cool enough to recognize rock-nerd references wherever they pop up. It's stupid, obviously, but I think it's the same kind of thing that's happening with Girl Talk. For me, that's really all he's good for: providing a setting for a bunch of people to congratulate each other for having the same set of pop-culture reference points. I think the Hold Steady fulfills that same urge.

A Record I Will Never Hear

Going through the stacks of CDs on my desk just a minute ago, I came across the new record by the Faint, which came out a few weeks ago to not a whole lot of fanfare. I've always been at least passingly interested in their music, and have come to respect them, if only for being so far ahead of the game in terms of the whole dance-punk thing. And then just yesterday, I read a New York Press article about them, and learned that they'd drifted away from the Saddle Creek Records scene, which they were so much a part of for over a decade. They released the new record (their first in four years), Fascination, on their own Blank.Wav Records label, which is a move I can support. 

But the fact that they released the record on their own actually made it even more disconcerting and, frankly, infuriating, when, after inserting the disc into my computer, I got a message saying it could not be played. They water-marked the shit out of it, making it so that it can be played practically nowhere. I remember taking home a similarly-protected promo copy of the Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America back in 2006, and not being able to listen to it on my computer, in my car, or on my big, main stereo system in my apartment. If I remember correctly, the only stereo that would play it was a tiny, shitty boombox. And, well, I definitely do not care enough about the Faint to go through all that. So, sorry dudes in the Faint, you should tell the people at, er, your record label that, next time around, you might get a little more press if you actually allow members of the press to, you know, listen to your record. 

A Book You Should Read

Today marks the release of It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music, a new book written by noted Pitchfork, Paste, New York Times and Spin scribe Amanda Petrusich. I've read it cover to cover, twice, and it's great. She examines American roots music through a series of road trips to historically important music spots around the country, in hopes of coming to some conclusions about what exactly constitutes "Americana" in a modern sense. She does a exhaustive job covering all the early stuff, form the Delta Blues, straight through Elvis, Johnny Cash and just about everything else you could think of. But what sets It Still Moves Apart, what makes it stand out from so many of the other like-minded works--in addition to her focus on geographical features and U.S. highways as an integral to the development of the music she's writing about--is that she follows it through to today, discussing at great length the alt-country movement of the 90s, the freak-folk movement of a couple years ago, and an assortment of artists carrying on in the same tradition right now. 

Back in 2001, I remember watching the PBS documentary American Roots Music, about 95% of which was outstanding. It provided more than a surface look at how Americana had changed over the years, about how the genre was kept alive through a series of small changes throughout the years, giving way to all sorts of little sub-genres that were developed by artists who were informed by what came before them without being completely beholden to specific stylistic choices. And then, disappointingly, as soon as they get up to Steve Earle and, I believe, Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Avenue project where they set unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics to music, the documentary fell apart with depressing footage of old (like, seriously old), white-haired men playing traditional bluegrass on flat-bed trucks at state fairs. It always struck me as odd that the directors weren't willing to do a bit more digging to find out what was going on at the time, that they were content to come to the conclusion that roots music exists today only through a fast-fading (read: dying) group of revivalists. Fortunately, Petrusich does a much better job. 

I Apologize, Lars. You May Have Been Right.

Bloc Party just announced that they'll be releasing their new record, Intimacy, in digital format this Thursday, with a physical copy containing different songs scheduled to arrive in stores in late October. 

Now, I can't listen to Bloc Party for more than about thirty seconds before wanting to grab someone by the shoulders, shake them, and scream that the dance-rock sub-genre has done more harm than good to rock and roll, by not so subtly implying that regular, non-tweaky rock music, the kind we listened to for fifty years, can't be danced to. But even I have to feel bad for them in this situation. It remains to be seen just how different the physical copy of their record will be, but even if it contains three of four alternate songs, it seems like an awful lot to expect from a band, to assume that they have so much extra material just sitting around. 

As if making a record weren't hard enough already, we're creating an environment where it's becoming even harder--with all this bonus material and these gimmicky release schedules becoming increasingly necessary in the battle against leaks--and as a result, the full-length format, as everyone has been saying for years, is being respected less and less, to the point where it's not even clear why anyone bothers anymore. 

Look at what went down with Bradford Cox this past weekend. While the leader of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound was trying to give away digital access to a brand new "virtual 7"" to readers of his blog, he accidentally posted a link to an unmastered, working version of a new Atlas Sound record, as well as some bonus tracks that were going to be released on the new Deerhunter record, Microcastle, which isn't coming out until October, but which leaked widely months ago. Someone caught on, re-posted the link, and just like that, Cox's attempt at making back some of the money he lost when Microcastle leaked was ruined, and a large portion of his fanbase was given access to a record long before he wanted them to hear it (he had yet to even record vocals on one of the tracks). 

His response, presumably in reference to the now-leaked, incomplete Atlas Sound record, was, "Fuck this shit. I can just make another album." 

Jeez.